Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs, What Is The Right Size For Your Business?

If your goal for being an entrepreneur is to enjoy the life style you want without having to fully retire, how big should your business be? What are some of the things you should think about?

Seth Godin recently commented that he had been doing a lot of thinking about issues of scale and units of measure. He concluded: “Many businesses that are in trouble are in trouble for a simple reason: they’re the wrong size”.

If you are the typical Baby Boomer Entrepreneur, looking for a business as an alternative to full retirement, what size fits your life goals? What are the units of measure you should consider? Here are a few to start:

• How much of your time should your business consume?
• How much of your financial resources should be invested in the business?
• How much personal cash flow should your business produce for you?
• When do you need that cash flow?
• How big a geographic scope should you serve?
• How many employees do you need to deliver on the promises you are going to make to your marketplace?
• Are you delivering a full scale system solution to your customer’s problem or a piece of the entire system?
• If you are successful, can you scale the business up and still enjoy the quality of life that is your goal?
  

The folks at Small Business Labs continued the discussion by commenting in their blog and sharing some of their research.

They observed that most industries are moving towards a barbell shaped industrial structure with a few global giants on one end and lots of small businesses on the other. Mid sized firms are being acquired by the larger firms or squeezed out.

Their second major observation was that variable cost business models allow small firms to be competitive with large firms in an increasing number of market spaces. New technologies have reduced the cost of starting and operating a business.

So, baby boomer entrepreneur, what is the answer for you? What combination of size and agility will allow you to compete in your market while still allowing you to live your desired lifestyle?

Shallie Bey

Back track URL to Seth’s post:

http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451b31569e2011279821f8d28a4

Back track URL to SmallBusiness Labs:

http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8345675df69e201156f52f46c970b

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs, Would You Like A Free Pass to the Classrooms of the Top Scholars In Your Field?

Could you benefit from hearing the key issues in astronomy, biology, chemistry, or our beloved topic of entrepreneurship? Would that help you find and develop your business ideas?

In our topic of entrepreneurship, there are 737 free guest lectures on such issues as why you need a business plan -- to The 5 Essential Skills that Entrepreneurs Need.

This is the work of Richard Ludlow. Richard is a 22 year old Yale University student. He is also a finalist in Business Week’s 2008 competition for America’s Best Young Entrepreneurs.

Richard felt that many people could not have access to the top lecturers in fields of interest to them. The barriers might be money, location, or time. So he found a way to bring Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Yale to the students. As a Baby Boomer Entrepreneur, you get to benefit by being a fly on the wall. You can look for business opportunities, build your knowledge, or simply increase your skills in entrepreneurship, all for free.

Thanks to young entrepreneurs Xavier Lur for bringing this to our attention. Xavier blogs at

http://techxav.com/2009/03/10/academic-earth-features-video-lectures-from-the-worlds-top-scholars-for-free/’ .

Go visit Academic Earth at : http://academicearth.org/ . I recommend to you Five Critical Skills That Entrepreneurs Need by Jerry Kaplan: http://academicearth.org/lectures/five-critical-skills-that-entrepreneurs-need . If you want an alternative view to Jerry Kaplan, you might want to see http://www.slate.com/id/2712/ .

Shallie Bey